Sony is delaying the European launch of its hotly anticipated PlayStation Portable gaming device by several months to ensure it can supply enough units for its U.S. launch.
The PSP, a sleek multimedia gadget that Sony hopes will be its first big success in consumer electronics since the PlayStation 2 five years ago, is already on sale in Japan and will hit U.S. stores on March 24.
Sony's factories have been unable to churn out enough PSPs to launch them simultaneously across the world. The company will wait to see whether it can keep up with demand in the U.S. before setting a date for Europe.
"It's been deferred. We were originally hoping for an end of fiscal year (March 31) launch, but now that's not going to be the case," a Sony spokesman said Tuesday. "It is likely to be a matter of a few months rather than a few weeks -- it's a matter of allocation."
"When it launches in the U.S., they will have 1 million units at launch and continuity of supply thereafter," he added.
The PSP, which Sony hopes will be as big of a hit as Apple's iPod music player, launched in Japan last December and remains in extremely limited supply there after the shipping of about 1.2 million units.
When the PlayStation 2 console was in short supply last Christmas, Sony resorted to the costly option of shipping units to the United States from China via air freight.
Sony games guru Ken Kutaragi, known as the father of the PlayStation, took on a diminished role at the company last week as part of a corporate shake-up that installed U.S. Sony head Howard Stringer as CEO of the entire company.
